June 27, 2007

Thirty seconds into Angelina Jolie's explanatory voice-over that opens "A Mighty Heart," the critically-acclaimed film about the pregnant wife of the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and beheaded by Muslim terrorists in Pakistan, the dozen corn-rowed young men sitting near me got up, put on their gang-colors jackets, and filed out of the theatre to go find something more entertaining to watch.

Who was right about "A Mighty Heart" -- the Critics or the Crips?

After Angelina Jolie first surfaced playing a lesbian junkie supermodel who dies of AIDS in 1998's "Gia," she stood out from Hollywood's fungible ranks of blonde and bland starlets by being dark and demented. After lurid years of soul-kissing her brother and wearing around her neck a vial of then-husband Billy Bob Thornton's blood, however, Jolie has been trying to recast herself as a globe-trotting humanitarian, a sexy Albert Schweitzer. Not surprisingly, she has brought the same demonic energy she once devoted to playing with knives to adopting orphaned children from different countries, resembling an obsessive Pokemon player who's gotta catch 'em all.

Her mother gave up acting after bearing her and her brother--the self-same brother Angie would team up with in "The Kiss That Grossed-Out A Nation"--courtesy of John Voight. (And can anyone say the name "John Voight" now w/o thinking about George Costanza buying a Chrysler that was once owned by "JOHN Voight",a dentist?? :D :D) Her mom was a REAL beauty and a real woman who put her family first,when Voight left. Good luck to Angie,but she seems to require more maintenance than a Mercedes Benz! Poor Brad...

I'm surprised the p.c. brigades haven't raised a huge outcry over the "racist" casting. Angelina Jolie is white, possibly with a little American Indian mixed in, while Mariane Pearl is part black and part Asian.

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